Water abstraction

The
main way to ensure our water supply operation does not impact on the
environment unacceptably is through abstraction licensing.

Our
licences state the maximum amount of water that can be taken each day and each
year and in some cases links abstraction rates to low thresholds in local
watercourses.

We
operate 18 stream supports where we pump water from an underground aquifer and
discharge it into a watercourse to maintain flows in the stream through the
year at specific thresholds.

Doing
this mitigates the impact of our abstractions for public water supply on local
watercourses. For three of these, operating them to comply with our licences
can also mean the amount of water we can abstract at the site for public water
supplies is reduced.

There
are a further 17 sources where we reduce our abstraction rate for public supply
when the river flow falls below a given threshold - this helps to reduce our
impact on the environment.

We continue to work with the Environment Agency
and Natural England where our existing licences do not protect the environment
adequately.